


The Castaway

by Havendale



Category: Twilight Zone
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 06:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21192734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havendale/pseuds/Havendale
Summary: A coda to "Time Enough at Last." Picture, if you will, a man in a blasted world, picking his way hopefully down the street.





	The Castaway

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed warnings at the end.

It was only afterwards that he thought to be grateful to Helen. At the worst moment of his life, the final and most crushing disappointment, if he had been another sort of man, he might have flown into a rage and stamped on the broken pieces of glass; but after so many years with Helen any violent instincts he might once have possessed had been almost totally smothered. Henry Bemis sank down on the library steps – they were coated thickly with coarse dust: even in his wild misery he found room in his head to hope it was only the dust of the broken buildings, and not anything worse – and looked up at the darkened sky with wet eyes, feeling bitterly sorry for himself.

He wondered whether any man had ever been quite so wretched. Even Robinson Crusoe had had the hope of rescue. So too the castaways on Verne’s mysterious island. And they had been hardy, stalwart men, in any cast – men’s men, who bore up under their troubles. With shame he reflected on the pistol. Verne’s castaways would not even have thought of it.

“You have no _fibre_, Henry,” the remembrance of Helen said in his ear, “and there is nothing more despicable than a man without fibre.”

“Helen, you must see,” whimpered Bemis, “I can’t _help_ it.”

“I don’t see anything of the kind. You’re a weak little man, Henry. That’s why you survived – because you’re a weak, crawling thing. Look around you: look at the worms and beetles still moving in the dirt. They’re your fellow survivors, Henry! They’re fit company for you!”

“Go away,” sobbed Bemis, “go away, go away! Oh –!”

He gave a cry because something had hurt him suddenly. There was a sharp pain in his right palm. With a start, he realised he was still holding onto one of the broken pieces of glass. After his spectacles had fallen he had fumbled for it by instinct, as he would a lost button or a dropped pencil, and it had not occurred to him to let it go. The rough edge of it had cut his skin.

It was a bigger piece than he had thought at first – almost a third of the lens. He lifted it to his eye, the way his father had once lifted his monocle – weak eyes, along with literary tastes, ran in the Bemis family – and blinked in sudden joy. The blasted street, the ruined buildings, were not things to inspire joy; but the stacks of books were. The bit of glass was dusty from the street and smeared with something – blood, he realised, from the cut on his hand. A sudden terror took hold of him that he would fumble it again, and then it would all be over with – really over with. He tucked it away hastily in the pocket of his jacket.

The world was impenetrable again: the fog had returned, and he was cut off. But the despair was gone. He no longer pitied himself. Helen’s spectre had vanished, and he knew it would not return.

Over the next several hours he made his plans. There were two optometrist’s offices in town: Dr. Avery’s, on Harrison Street, where he had gone until he married Helen, and Dr. Smythe’s, where he had gone after Helen, because Dr. Smythe was rather cheaper and Helen had made clear her resentment at any money spent on eyeglasses. It would be dangerous to go even the short distance to Dr. Avery’s through the rubble: he might break a bone, or gash himself on something and the wound turn septic. And there would be nobody to help: no police or ambulances, no Nemo in his submarine.

But the papery smell of the books had a bracing effect on him. He had been prepared to shoot himself, after all. Now he felt not shame but pride at the memory. He, Henry Bemis, had been prepared to face death! That fact was indisputable. It blazed in his head as if in neon. He could face death if he must. He had fibre after all.

Yes: he would go. His first night alone he lit a candle and squinted awkwardly through the bit of glass at the pages of a paperback edition of _Henry V_, to cheer himself; and the next morning, when it was light, he did go. The day was bitterly cold and the sunshine still obscured behind dark, heavy-looking clouds. He wrapped himself in a coat he had found hanging in a closet and set out northwards, in the direction of where Harrison Street had been, with the shard of glass held to his eye – like a Victorian gentleman, he thought, smiling to himself. It was almost comical. Such was his happiness at his errand that he did not feel even particularly horrified when he came upon the first body. It helped that he had seen several the day before, and that it was not anybody he knew.

Only once did he encounter another living thing. It was halfway down the ruins of what had been Conkling Avenue. He had stopped a moment to catch his breath after clambering over some broken brickwork, and while he was sitting down, panting a little, he saw a bird suddenly rise up from a teetering roof beam and wheel off through the sky. Not the sole survivor after all, he thought to himself, and felt at once glad and sorry.

Supposing other people had survived? Supposing there was a Nemo after all?

But it would take a long time before they found him, even if they looked, he thought to himself: and why on Earth should they look? Henry Bemis hadn’t been important while the world was running, and now that it was smashed into pieces he was less important still.

No: nobody would come. Why should they?

He found several more bodies along the way, and more still at the wreck of Dr. Avery’s office – including Dr. Avery himself, lying curled with a horrible gash in his head. The place was beginning to smell. Bemis quailed. But he must think of his aim in coming here. He must not let his nerves get the better of him. Fibre, that was the thing. Carefully he opened the tilted cupboards and drawers now littered with broken glass. When he found the first intact pair he put them on happily, only to realise in disappointment that the prescription was far weaker than his own. He tried another pair, and another. The third was a little better, but not good enough to read with.

A dismal thought came to him. Hadn’t Dr. Avery once said that his eyes were nearly the worst he’d ever seen? Perhaps there were no similar prescriptions to be found. As his fingers closed around another pair he felt suddenly reluctant to try them. Had he come for nothing?

No! There it was – not as good as before, of course, but close – close enough! They were women’s glasses, but what did that matter? Tears came to his eyes. But this was not the only surprise. There – lying askew – he saw it now: _Hard Times_, tossed roughly aside, he imagined, after the ghastly light in the sky had startled poor Dr. Avery during his lunchtime reading. Bemis snatched it up and kissed the cover.

Let the first month start with Dickens: why not? And Henry Bemis, joyfully, adjusted his glasses, sat down in the rubble of the office, and began to read.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Non-graphic depiction of the aftermath of a nuclear attack, including dead bodies; emotional abuse; discussion of suicide in a fantastic context; period-typical views on suicide; spoilers for _The Mysterious Island_ by Jules Verne
> 
> This idea isn’t original, but I can’t for the life of me remember where I first read the suggestion that Bemis should have stopped panicking and just headed for the nearest optometrist’s office. I think it may have been in a YouTube comment. Anyway, if it was you, and you happen to be reading this, please accept full credit and grateful thanks.


End file.
